Friends and Stalkers are Rarely Helpful
by Chrysalis Keaton
Summary: MULTIPLE CROSSOVERS - When female OC looks to the company of her best friend in a graveyard to find a the perfect guild for her, suddenly all of the other men following her have to make an appearance... and madness ensues. A "How She Met..." tale: Oberon.


**Hello, there, this is Chrysalis Keaton, warning you about the mayhem in this story...it's actually a crossover including characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas, In The Forests Of The Night, Doctor Faustus, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings, Blood and Chocolate, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Being a newbie on fanfic net, I have no idea how to categorize it as a crossover, so I'm hoping this will suffice. As much as I wish, I own only Darkling and the plot...what little of it exists. I WISH I owned the men...rawr! Anyways, enjoy and review, please! I would love some input!  
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Darkling was in a state. She was frantic to find a suitable guild to join, and yet her best friend, three stalkers, and two protectors were being absolutely worthless in helping her out. Darkling leaned over her best friend, Jack Skellington, and shouted, "What are you doing lazing about? Find me the perfect guild to join! Throw me a freaking bone here!"

Jack Skellington refused the first request, but did throw his femur towards Aubrey, who was lounging at the base of a tree in the graveyard. "Ask him, Sally threw me out of the tower again, I'm just not myself anymore."

"You're such a freaking moody jerk!" she shrieked at him. "Every time something goes amiss or you get obsessed, you always get like this! You better watch out, Jack, your melancholy is showing! Next thing you know, it will be the whole Christmas debacle all over again. I beg you to take the leprechaun's place this time…now that would be a laugh, though I'm sure you wouldn't think so, Mr. Miserable."

Having thus scolded her friend, she spun on stalker number one, Aubrey the vampire.

"Don't look at me, gorgeous," Aubrey said calmly, looking down and inspecting his nails when she focused her frustration at him. While he did so, Lestat also checked for any traces of blood from his earlier feeding as he explained, "I refuse to help you in any way until you give me some of that delicious blood of yours."

"Is that all you follow me around for?" she demanded, glaring at him.

"But of course," he responded, smiling charmingly. "It's a simple price, considering what that one wants." He gestured towards a handsome Mephistopheles (stalker number three), who looked up from his tablet.

"Ah, yes, Darkling Jade Rowe…Will you trade your soul for the perfect guild, then?" the demon asked, flashing his pearly whites in her direction.

"How many times have I told you to stop using my whole name?!" Darkling shouted. "It's _Miss_ Rowe to you, Mr. I-Tempted-Faust-So-I-Can-Get-Anyone! Mr. I-Can-Distract-Anyone-With-My-Gorgeous-Visage-And-Get-Them-To-Trade-Their-Soul-For-Peanuts! I swear if you don't go back to hell and Satan where you belong I'll send you back with a swift kick to your perfectly-formed ass!"

Mephistopheles sidled next to Darkling while she was shouting and absently twirled a strand of hair around his fingers while fixing his gaze onto hers. His voice deepened and grew darkly tempting. "Gorgeous, am I? I thought this form would appeal to you…if you won't let me relieve you of your soul for the perfect guild, I have an alternative that is much more pleasurable for the both of us I think…now why don't we go over to that mausoleum now, and we can, er…TALK about the terms of this agreement…"

At which point Mephistopheles pulled a dazed, hypnotized Darkling close and led her towards said structure. He even got a few steps before the heavy hand of Severus Snape descended upon his shoulder, halting his progress.

Darkling's first protector silently threatened the demon with his wand as her second, Draco Malfoy, drew her from his embrace. Once she was clear from danger Severus threw Mephistopheles against the nearest tree. "I grow tired of your presence," the enraged wizard growled, no longer quiet. "If you continue to threaten my charge, I'll be forced to upset the balances of good and evil."

Darkling was shaking, recovering from her hypnosis, so Draco swung her up into his arms. "Come, now Sevie," Draco said, gathering Darkling close and brushing a light kiss over her forehead. "We can't kill everything that looks upon her as a pretty treat, else, where would the wizarding world be? They can't help being attracted, just as she can't help being a magnet. It's in her blood, you know."

"True," Snape said shortly. He put away his wand and stared the smirking demon down until the grin was wiped from his face. "Begone, demon, before I change my mind." And Mephistopheles went. Upon further inspection of the clearing, so had Aubrey… _For the moment_, Darkling thought bitterly.

She was recovering enough to glare at Severus for his interruption. "I could've handled that myself you know. I was doing just fine without you."

"Sure you were, my love," he drawled in that deep, sexy accent.

Darkling let loose an involuntary shiver against Draco, who chuckled and said, "No fair, Sev. I thought we agreed you weren't allowed to use that tone to seduce her."

The "her" in question erupted into a flurry of struggles which had Draco scrambling to set her down gently. "Stop it with the blood and the soul and the seducing bits! All I wanted was…was…damn it! What was it that I wanted?" Darkling inwardly seethed at everyone's persistence, struggling to wrestle the memory of her original complaint up past the recent events of pet names and various attempts at various seductions.

"The perfect guild," Jack said despondently, plucking the buds of a branch of hemlock.

"Yes! The perfect guild! The most wonderful, perfect, suitable guild for me!"

"Now, sweet, what would you need a guild for when you have Sevie and me?" Draco wheedled, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

"Indeed, kitten," Severus concurred, stepping closer to the pair and standing behind Darkling. "When do you suppose you'll find the time when we intend to keep you so very…otherwise occupied?"

"Oh, why don't you two just stuff it?" Darkling asked, though thoroughly lacking the heat of conviction behind her words. Her gaze fixed upon the green snake embroidered upon Draco's jumper.

Just then they were interrupted by a high-pitched yell of rage as a humanoid figure launched himself off a gravestone. Severus and Draco flung themselves to the ground to avoid the kicking, punching, snarling creature while Darkling opened her arms to the little thing. He stopped fighting the wizards to wrap himself around her, fixing the men with large, glaring eyes, petting Darkling's hair repetitively in a possessive manner.

"She's MY precious!" he shouted at the protectors, baring his teeth menacingly.

"Merlin's farts, Darkling," Draco whined, wiping dried leaves from his shirt while Severus zapped his with his wand and an incantation. "Why ever do you keep that thing? It's positively horrendous. It always does that when we're…talking."

Darkling's face tightened in anger. "It's not a 'thing', Malfoy. His name is Gollum, and he is positively the most adorable thing ever. Affectionate, too," she added as he nestled his head in the crook of her neck, softly crooning his Fish Song,

"The rock and pool,  
is nice and cool,  
so juicy sweeeeeet.

Our only wish,  
to catch a fish,  
so juicy sweeeeeet!"

"He's revolting," Draco said.

"You take that back!"

"No! He's a filthy monster who is always where I should be!" Draco shouted, fixing the cadaverous hobbit with an envious glare.

"We, Draco," Severus said, doing likewise. "He's were WE should be."

"Yes, yes, that's what I meant."

Darkling set Gollum on the ground, despite his struggles to remain wound around his mistress. "Precious, precious, please! We won'ts sings the song agains, wes swears…please, my precious!"

"Gollum," Darkling said, fixing her protectors with a meaningful glare, "I desire a fish, can you go get one for me?"

"YES! Yes, precious, I will go gets you a fish…" he ran off through the grave yard, alternating "precious" with nonsense rhymes.

Jack mumbled, "He sure is a strange little fellow…"

Darkling turned on him and shouted, "Don't you start, too! Go home! Make up with Sally and stop all those ridiculous experiments in your attic! You know they just remind her of Dr. Finkelstein!" Jack, ever the obedient dejected skeleton, got to his feet and loped from the graveyard.

Thus being properly obeyed for once, she spun on the wizards, who, seeing their eviscerations in her eyes, quickly made excuses for a hasty departure: Severus saying that he had a professor's meeting at the school, and Draco excusing himself for his weekly poker night. Without giving her a chance to get a word in edgewise, they disappeared with a muttered spell.

She stood there for a moment, in the silence under the stars, wondering how her simple quest for a flawless guild had come to all this madness. The men in her life were ridiculous, and she had just about had enough of them all!

A rustle in the trees sounded and Darkling closed her eyes and sighed loudly, bemoaning her fate. Not ALL of the men had shown up tonight…it was about time that stalker number three showed up.

"Jeez, babe, I thought they'd never leave," Gabriel said, perched on a branch and smiling wolfishly.

_Why does this always have to happen to me?_ Darkling thought, groaning inwardly. She was alone for just a moment, and then would get interrupted, return to being solitary, and then have company thrust upon her within a breath. _And to top it all off, now I'm with a horny werewolf_.

Gabriel leapt from the tree branch and landed gracefully on his feet. Darkling was so used to his displays of strength and power that she rarely ever flinched anymore. He strolled towards her, saying, "Looks like you're having a pretty intense conversation with yourself. How about you get into a serious exchange with me, instead?"

"Good God, don't you men have anything better to do with your time than think up innuendos?"

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow as he halted two inches in front of her before pulling her up against him. "Oh, we've got plenty of better things to do, baby," he growled, putting his face closer to hers, "But it's kinda difficult when a girl plays hard to get." Gabriel brushed his lips across her jaw line before following the curve of her neck. As Darkling weakly struggled in his grasp, she could feel him settle into his task, tenderly nipping the skin.

And just when she was about to submit from exhaustion…

"Oh, if I were in your position, my friend," Aubrey said, his French accent sifting through the darkness.

Gabriel growled roughly and set his teeth deep into her neck, eliciting tension and a whimper from Darkling, who was being clutched to his chest like a rag doll. He bit harder, drawing blood and making a mark. Finally he released her. "She's mine now, bloodsucker."

"Indeed?"

"Yeah, she carries my mark. My teeth. My mate."

Aubrey emerged from the shadow of a large statue, striding towards them. "Unfortunately for you, that means nothing to vampires. All you've done is broken her fair skin and let loose that fragrant scent I've yearned to smell again for the longest time. My control is quite shattered," Aubrey said the last part almost apologetically, as he wrenched Gabriel away from Darkling and flung him twenty feet away and into a gravestone with such force that it snapped in two. Gabriel didn't get up.

"Oh look what you did, Aubrey…I wonder if he's alright…Go check on him."

Barely paying attention to the werewolf's fate, Aubrey ignored her words and bent his head to the wound on Darkling's neck, delicately licking up small rivulets of blood that seeped from the bite. He rested his forehead along her jaw, pressing his face close to the blood, teasing himself. "Do you know how long I've wanted this, my dear?"

"No," she managed to say. "I don't know. I don't want to know. I don't care about anything that you want, because you sure as hell don't care about what I want. Get off me. Go check on Gabriel. Maybe he has some tasty blood seeping from a head wound."

Aubrey chuckled as he tightened his grip. "I wouldn't even if I could," he said, shifting and brushing the tips of his fangs over her neck, dampening them with blood. He pulled back slightly and licked it off his teeth. "No more waiting," he muttered, mostly to himself. Aubrey moved forward again and Darkling closed her eyes and braced herself for the pain and waited…And waited.

Hearing a soft struggle of breath she looked up, and just beyond Aubrey's ear were the eyes of Mephistopheles, glowing red with rage, as demon's eye were wont to do. The demon's arm was wrapped around the vampire's neck, pulling his face backwards, away from her neck.

"Damn you to heaven and back, you corpse. Darkling Jade Rowe's soul is mine! I can't allow you to kill her until she has conceded it to me."

Just then Gollum returned and, upon seeing his beloved mistress in distress, set upon whacking the attackers with the dead fish he had caught. The odor of the fish masked that of blood and, in disgust, Mephistopheles and Aubrey released with their burdens and retreated while Gollum grabbed Darkling's hand and swung himself up, clinging to her like a baby monkey. "Precious? Precious? Is the precious alright?"

Gabriel groaned and sat up, rubbing the back of his head. When he looked up to see the crowd that had gathered, he stood, muttering expletives under his breath. He regained his stance, and was promptly knocked over again by the appearance of two contrite and fretful wizards on top of his head. All three struggled to their feet while the vampire and demon faced off, and the emaciated hobbit begged forgiveness for ruining his mistress' fish.

The king of fairies, Oberon, was finally awakened from his fitful sleep in the graveyard by this last disturbance. He had slept through the calmer parts of this night, tossed and turned through the rougher events, but the combination of a demon's rage, vampire's bloodlust, werewolf's animalistic desires, hobbit's agitation, wizard's magic, and the sickly-sweet scent of blood on the air finally woke him from his rest.

He rose from the earth in a bubbling pit of soil, and, when his dramatic entrance garnered no attention, he peevishly roared, "SILENCE!"

Quiet fell on the graveyard, the wind stopped blowing and the crickets stopped chirping at the fairy king's demand. Oberon had a rapt audience. "Now what in the name of buttercup's pollen are you all _doing_ here?" Immediately he got an assortment of answers:

"I was worried about my darling."

"The men were on my precious."

"I was claiming my mate!"

"Her soul is mine to take!"

"Committing a few justifiable, multiple homicides for my love."

"I only wanted a sip from her throat!"

"SHUT THE MORNING GLORY UP!"

Silence fell again as he sought out the one figure who hadn't spoken. Darkling was staring at the ground, where Gollum had fallen to make his excuses. Feeling the fairy king's gaze on her, she muttered, "I only wanted to find the perfect guild."

Then she looked directly at the king and his breath left him in a rush. In three seconds he had fallen to his knees in the grass before her, and pledged, "Milady, if only you shall give thy humble servant favor, you shall never want again. I shall adorn thee in the finest of nature's bounty, only the purest shall pass thy lips…"

And as all of the men stood by watching their newest rival pledge himself to their Darkling, the girl in question wrested her hand from the fairy king's grip.

"Good grief. All I freaking wanted was a guild!"


End file.
